


the glorious land

by sewn



Series: War [2]
Category: Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Comics Elements, Gen, Post Infinity War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 22:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14602785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sewn/pseuds/sewn
Summary: The fact that he finds Rogers and Romanov along with Rhodey waiting for him back in New York makes him lose his breath again. He can’t string a sentence together and Steve won’t look him in the eye but at least he’s here, flesh and blood and sporting an unnaturally well-groomed beard.





	the glorious land

**Author's Note:**

> This is more like a companion piece than a sequel to [the realm of uncertainty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14442990), but will make more sense if you read that one first.

Later, Tony will only remember flashes of how he got back home.

His mouth tastes like sulphur and blood and his lungs burn.

The blue alien grabs his shoulders and drags him into her spaceship.

The stars above Titan turn into streaks of light.

-

He should probably disdain the wave of relief that washes over him when he sees Steve, but Tony is certainly not capable of emotional multitasking right now. Relief it is, then.

On the way, before they could make any contact with Earth, he was convinced he would return to find nothing but scorched earth. It would only make sense for every single one of them to be gone, leaving him without any chance at recovery or reconciliation. He’s probably being selfish framing it like this but simple emotions are something to hold on to.

So, the fact that he finds Rogers and Romanov along with Rhodey waiting for him back in New York makes him lose his breath again. He can’t string a sentence together and Steve won’t look him in the eye but at least he’s here, flesh and blood and sporting an unnaturally well-groomed beard. The bastard. Tony wishes he could hug him but settles for a kiss from Natasha, who explains they just arrived, too, and looks at Tony like she’s just as relieved to see him alive. Nebula, the alien, observes their reunion from afar and seems to engage Steve in a suspicious staring contest.

They all end up in the Tower, up on the penthouse floor. It hasn’t occurred to Tony to miss her until FRIDAY bursts back into life in his ears, like she’s been waiting for him to come home. His heart suddenly jolts awake.

”Welcome back, boss.” Tony might be projecting, but he thinks there’s a hint of relief in her voice, too.

-

After everyone else has retired to their rooms, guided by the Tower’s guest protocol, Tony drifts back to the living room. It’s dark outside, and the city lights should be a sea below, but they have turned into separate flickering puddles. Tony notices it is snowing as he walks over to the windows. The snowflakes melt instantly as they hit the warm glass. It is May, and a week ago he and Pepper walked under the cherry blossoms in Central Park.

The first thing he sought out once Nebula’s ship closed in on Earth was Pepper’s whereabouts. Which was – nowhere. He still felt the ghost arms of a teenager around his neck. He didn’t even get to see –

He lost her too many times before. He thought the last one, the adult one, was eventually the worst. That one was all on him: not a supervillain attack but an everyday tragedy. He couldn’t simply save her, because she didn’t need saving. What they had to do was talk, and listen, together. It was ridiculously, awfully, wonderfully quotidian. He thought that they got past the supervillain part already.

Tony turns his back on the cold city and sits back on the couch, head in hands. Once again, he has been robbed of his future and his past.

-

Nebula has a way of sneaking up on people that would be scary if she was human. A literal killing machine, with her it crosses the line into blood-curdling. Tony hopes he can be forgiven for jumping out of his chair ready to suit up when she shows up in his workshop the first time. She seems to take it in stride.

”I wonder if you could,” she begins, guarded, ”take a look at this.” She holds out her arm. It looks bent out of shape.

”I’m sorry, I’m not a doctor,” Tony says, but eyes her arm. It looks rather dramatically wounded, like a bone has pushed through the skin.

”Aren’t you?” She inclines her head towards the general direction of his workspace. Fair enough.

He doesn’t feel like much of a clinician but has her sit down in front of him and asks her where it hurts. Her skin has torn open, and it turns out something’s jammed inside her elbow. She explains she can usually fix herself when it comes to large-scale damage but has no way of dealing with the finer details of her mechanical parts right now. She doesn’t use the word _wounds_ , which strikes Tony a little sad. 

”Alright, tell me if any of this stings, I’ll stop.”

Would she want a painkiller? Would those even work on her? Tony decides to ask about that later, but her body does pique his interest. She seems like a human with augmentations, and not a robot like he first thought. Her skin is blue but he can tell she bleeds except underneath it, like it’s an exo-skeleton of sorts. The elbow wound where he can see in reveals flesh underneath, and dark purple blood that’s clogging up the joint. It’s a good thing Tony keeps a first aid kit down here. He cleans the wound up and she hisses at the antiseptic, a perfectly human sound.

”Continue.” She glares at him.

Once the joint is revealed, Tony can see an intricate mechanism that allows her arm to bend in any direction. There seem to be some screws missing and some are bent out of shape.

”I suppose you don’t carry spare parts of your own?”

She doesn’t, so he sets out figuring which bits of Earth hardware fit her alien ones. Bolts and screws are fortunately not that different across the galaxy, even if she is made of fascinating, strange metal alloys. Tony decides to ask about that later, too, when she doesn’t have someone poking at her with a screwdriver. It could be a sensitive subject.

Once he’s done she tests the range of movements gingerly, like it still hurts.

”Does the trick, right?” Tony asks.

Nebula’s mouth curves into a smile. It’s small, but it’s the first one he’s seen in what feels like years.

-

It doesn’t take a blue alien to make Tony jump, anyway. It keeps happening whenever Nat or Steve approach him, quiet like they’re still superspies gone rogue. He gets that it’s hard to shake after years on the run, but it makes his mornings just that extra bit stressful.

Natasha is especially bad, or good, depending on your point of view. Tony gets the feeling she would like to talk about something as she sidles up to him and makes an appreciative noise at the coffee he’s brewing. It’s probably something a little more complex than a hurt elbow, so Tony decides he won’t push her, either.

If he’d had time to regain the higher cognitive levels of emotional processing, he would perhaps think it has something to do with not wanting to push any more people away, but nope, he’s not going there. There’s a time and a place, and it’s not his kitchen in the morning.

”Sheesh, Romanov, give an old man a break,” he says with exaggeration, and she wiggles her eyebrows. Like the good old days. ”I’ve got heart trouble, you know.”

“Maybe you should cut down on caffeine.”

Natasha is freshly showered, hair in damp curls, no makeup on. Tony fixes her a double espresso, her usual. They drink their coffee in companionable silence. If not for her blonde hair, it could be an early morning at the Compound, with Tony having come to visit with upgrades or attend a meeting. Except there are no other Avengers about to wake up and storm the kitchen. Just –

”Morning, Steve,” Natasha greets.

Tony contains his jump. Two sneak-ups before 8 am is definitely pushing it, but he practises his newfound restraint.

”Coffee?” he asks.

”Thanks,” Steve says softly and accepts the cup. Their fingers brush, and it seems like it’s Steve who startles a little this time. Tony can’t help but think back on the first night. His little outburst of emotion had clearly made Steve uncomfortable, which doesn’t encourage much further prodding of their shared issues. Of course, Nat takes her leave and strides out of the kitchen somehow purposefully, throwing a “Thanks for the coffee” over her shoulder.

The silence is a little less companionable, but not deafening.

”It suits you.”

”What?” Steve looks at him, bemused.

”The beard. Well done,” Tony says lightly.

Steve looks a little uncomfortable, but it’s the old Steve. Irritated by Tony poking at him.

”Thank you… I suppose,” he says drily. He takes a sip of his coffee and makes a little sound of pleasure, immediately followed by a light blush on his cheeks. As if he caught himself too late, Tony thinks with a surprising bubble of fondness suddenly filling his chest.

”Haven’t had good coffee for a while,” Steve says like he needs to explain. ”The British don’t really care.” He takes another sip.

The banality of the statement almost makes Tony laugh out but he bites his tongue again. He can work with this. It’s just small talk, right? Just two ex-colleagues talking.

”So, you were across the pond, then?” Tony opens the fridge, set on making sandwiches. He has yet to master actual cooking, but he has become quite adept at a breakfast sandwich over the last few months. 

”When we were attacked, yes.” Steve sits down. Tony’s hand lands on Pepper’s shelf, automatically, and his stomach lurches. No cress. He hates cress anyway. 

”I thought you tracked us,” Steve continues a little sharply. It feels like he is watching Tony, who finally closes the fridge with his hands full.

”Well, turns out Vision wasn’t really keen on being monitored,” he says. This is not going the way small talk should. ”You want a sandwich? Too many carbs, you care about that sort of thing?”

Steve looks a little thrown again. ”Uh, that’s… Sure. I’d like one. Thank you.”

So, Tony fixes them both sandwiches. Eggs. Bacon. Guacamole. Cheese. It feels comforting, the familiar steps. It’s just that there’s no Pepper here. She would sneak up on him, all noisy and un-spy-like, and press a kiss on the back of his neck. She would have oatmeal. _Don’t think about the oatmeal_ , Tony tells himself. Is it weird that he keeps thinking about food? It seems somehow inappropriate. She was so much more than breakfast food and yet this was his favorite time of the day. Going for a run in the morning. Breakfast together before their busy days began.

”Ta-dah,” he says and can’t keep the note of pride out of his voice when he finally presents Steve with two decidedly unhealthy sandwiches. ”I bet the Brits starved you as well.”

-

Tony doesn’t spend a lot of time in his actual office, but he needs to take care of business. His assistants are gone, and he finally gave up on trying to avoid the world. FRIDAY can do only so much deflecting.

After the heavy door is closed, his father’s gaze follows Tony around the room. It always does, the inherently creepy way portraits do, but it’s been a while since it rested so heavy on him.

His personal tragedies aside, it’s only now starting to sink in how deeply in trouble the planet is.

Where did the path of destruction begin? Was it six years ago? What if he had realized back then what kind of a game they were getting into? Could he have prevented it? Tony thinks of what he said to Steve. Does he really believe that? Rationally, he knows it’s not on him, and yet there were so many avenues that could have been pursued. He was so focused on the petty crimes of humanity when he could have used all this time the way Fury wanted him to. _Proper preparation prevents poor performance._ Could they have prepared? They could have at least tried, instead of tearing each other apart.

Or, perhaps, it all began much earlier. Tony glances at Howard on the wall. Where would he be without his father? With his father? It’s still somewhere inside of him, the tangled mess of unexamined feelings, but over the two years the pain has lost its edge. It’s not that he didn’t think of calling Steve – he did, every damn day – but it was easier to focus on what was right here and now. It wasn’t exactly uneventful. Still, he carried the phone around, and almost made a ritual out of taking it out of his pocket, poking the thing back to life and staring at Steve’s number on the screen only to close it again. Eventually, it started to feel like that in itself could be enough. A prayer of sorts.

And yet, when he finally saw Steve, he became acutely aware of how much there was left to atone.

Tony sits down at his desk, his father’s old desk, turning his back on Howard’s gaze. Perhaps it all started way back then, in the desert, with the hubris of Earth’s mightiest scientists. Destroyers of worlds. What if Earth hadn’t been on the radar of mad gods had it not been for reaching for the stars and splitting the atom? You could pick up the thread from when his father set up Stark Industries and tug, and pull apart the whole military-industrial complex.

Tony doesn’t think of himself as a fatalist. He accepts the consequences of his actions. Does that extend to his father as well? His grandfather, hopping off a boat on the shores of this land? And what of his and Pepper’s – his chest aches at the thought – 

He still has Steve’s note in a drawer. Another ritual, he takes it out. Does Steve even remember what he wrote? Tony ponders how to broach the subject. Perhaps he shouldn’t, but then – he can’t think of going forward without talking about it. Maybe he could make Steve spend some time with BARF. Maybe they could have a joint session. As if that could happen.

Steve was never one to share his feelings with Tony, but it’s hard to ignore how every little movement of his body screams loss. He never could hide it. Barnes is gone, too, so it isn’t a surprise. If there’s someone who’s witnessed the depth of Rogers’ feelings for his best pal, it’s Tony. That piece in the puzzle – The Soldier – he has made his peace with. If anything, he’s sad now he didn’t get the chance to meet Barnes again.

As it is, Tony can’t really fault Steve for closing off and sneaking around the Tower at night. The security system tells him Steve’s been going to the gym for the few nights he’s been here. Since Nat left this morning, Tony suspects Steve won’t have anyone left to talk to in the small hours of the night, and that strikes him as both incredibly sad and infuriating. For all Tony is willing to admit his part in the great break-up, over time he has concluded that what got them into the mess in the first place was Cap’s apparent disregard for his own emotional stability. He clings to people to an unhealthy degree and then –

Tony shakes his head. When did he become so involved with the inner life of Steve Rogers? He folds the note and drops it back in the drawer. He needs to make some calls.

-

Maybe it’s the sandwich, maybe something else, but later, Steve brings up his plans for helping the city. Tony has actually already taken up a few courses of action. The destruction in New York is bad, and so is the continuously cooling weather. The rest of the country isn’t doing too hot either. California simply doesn’t exist. It’s difficult to think about.

”We should focus on the city first. I talked to the mayor,” Steve says, and goes on to brief Tony on the situation. He has kept his eye on the news, but he lets Steve go on. He looks confident like this, delivering mission intel. A little less desperate. The frown in place, his jaw set, he’s every bit the commanding officer again. The beard does add a certain layer of gravitas. Does the Army let you grow a beard? The Marines do, don’t they? What is Steve’s rank these days, anyway?

”Alright,” Tony agrees, realizing he’s missed half of what Steve said because he was apparently too busy staring at his face. ”I’ll put up a program monitoring social media, keep up with the emergency tweets. The tech in the Tower is still intact…”

After the initial shock of The Second Incident, tragedies have started piling up. Most of the City Council is gone and the rest are scrambling to keep it together. The subway still operates, but there are power breaks throughout the five boroughs. Half of SI’s arc reactors have gone, situated exactly where the seabed fractured. There are dead birds in the streets everywhere. Confused by the weather and more lost in the city than ever before, they crash into windows in droves. Just as confused, people are fleeing upstate, South, over to New Jersey, every which way, causing traffic jams and accidents.

For all intents and purposes, the city is a war zone.

Bruce, who stayed in Wakanda, wants to hook him up with the country’s newly, albeit tragically, crowned Queen Shuri. Wakandan technology and armed forces have already been dispatched to help in the other continents, and they’re offering a helping hand to the Americas as well.

The world keeps falling apart, but at least Tony feels like fixing it again.

-

Nebula keeps coming in for repairs.

”He’s strong for a human,” she says a little defensively when Tony wonders aloud about Steve bending her arm the wrong way again. He’s not sure if his powered roomies should keep on handling their emotions this way, but he’s not going to get between a supersoldier and a bionic woman.

”You sure you’re not just distracted by his pretty face?” He closes the small latch on her wrist carefully, having reattached some wires.

”He’s a good fighter,” she says tightly, but Tony could swear her cheeks turn a slightly purple shade.

”Whatever you say, Smurfette.”

Nebula glares at him, and ignores the subject.

As days go by, she lingers in his workshop a little longer each time. She asks him questions about Earth and Stark tech. It only occurs to Tony to ask about her involvement with Thanos after a couple of days.

”He raised me,” she grinds out. ”I’m his _daughter_.” She spits out the word.

”He’s your… dad?” Tony has a hard time imagining the monstrous being as anything but a vengeful alien force. An unfair, uncaring god.

”He tortured me and built me into a killing machine. He had me fight my sister over his approval for years. And then he murdered her.” She rattles off the sentences like a bedside prayer. “I am going to hunt him down and tear him apart if it’s the last thing I do,” she concludes. _Amen._

And here he thought he had daddy issues.

”So, you weren’t always like this?” He gestures at her metal arm. Her gleaming fingers have clenched into a fist.

”No. But it’s hard to remember what I was like… before,” she says. ”I don’t remember my… real family.” She says the words with some uncertainty, like they might be a wrong answer to a difficult question. ”Gamora was my family. And he took her away from me, too.”

Talking with Nebula is surprisingly easy, after that. She’s interested in his work, which down here means mostly reprogramming the remaining suits and monitoring their activity.

Nebula lets him analyze her bionic arm and the other implants and augmentations. The materials are, as far as Earth science goes, impossible. Her body is a battlefield: plowed and battered, stuffed full of deadly weapons. Tony would find her miraculous if it wasn’t so horrifying.

She also tells him about her life, and while she’s curt, she has a lot to say about Thanos. 

“He’s not interested in revenge,” Nebula says, correcting Tony’s assumptions. “He thinks he is doing the right thing.”

Is it really not revenge? Thanos might call it balance, but isn’t saving the universe from overpopulation simply revenge on life itself? Life, which spreads through the universe invincible, a disease taking over matter, turning it into something mutable and evolving. Isn’t that how the monster who calls himself god conceives of it?

Nebula pulls him out of his thoughts.

”I think we should discuss what we’re going to do with him. I have been observing you, and you Terran heroes are obviously no match for his strength. Except for maybe one.”

”And who is that?” He has a feeling she doesn’t mean the Hulk.

”Have you ever heard of the Kree and the Skrulls?”

”Can’t say I have.”

Nebula makes a little clicking sound, as if she’s sighing.

”I’ll start from the beginning.”

-

After Nebula is gone, it’s just the two of them in the Tower.

Steve has no one to train with, so Tony is afraid he’ll start sulking again. He could suggest a hobby. Maybe they could go see Nat and Laura at the farm.

With no one else around, it really gets quiet at night. The security feed informs him that Steve is down at the gym again. Not feeling tired himself, Tony takes the elevator from his lab, all the way down. He would know where to find Steve even without the sounds echoing from the room with the boxing gym.

Tony slips in as quietly as possible. He’s pretty sure Steve can tell he’s here, but he keeps pounding the bag anyway. There it is: the anger in his back muscles, in his stance, in the explosive strength of his arms. Steve can be graceful, but he’s also impossibly strong, and seeing him put all of his strength into a single straightforward punch reminds Tony of a charging animal. There’s always been something a little scary yet heartbreaking about it, even when he was the one taking the hit.

In quiet except for Steve’s quickening breath, Tony watches the pugilistic endeavor for a while. The bag is ultimately no worthy opponent to Steve, and it’s torn from the ceiling. Sand bursts out of a seam and pools slowly on the floor.

Steve falls to his knees, panting.

Tony decides to take his chance and approaches him slowly. ”Steve,” he says softly, sitting down on the floor next to him.

”I’m sorry,” Steve says, motioning his head towards the bag. He sounds like he might cry. Tony’s ever seen that happen once before.

Tony slides a gentle hand between Steve’s shoulder blades. Steve closes his eyes and doesn’t pull away for once.

”Hey, come on, it’s okay.” Tony feels like shushing Steve, like calming a beast. He can feel each unsteady breath under his palm. ”Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

He thinks of Nebula’s plan. Of what Strange said.

_The only way._

Perhaps all is not lost.


End file.
